E-Paper
Drones killed up to 116 civilians, says US govt
WASHINGTON: The US on Friday released figures for the first time that showed that between 64 and 116 civilians were killed in drone strikes outside “areas of active
WASHINGTON: The US on Friday released figures for the first time that showed that between 64 and 116 civilians were killed in drone strikes outside “areas of active hostilities” on President Barack Obama’s watch.
These casualties, the US count of which is significantly lower than that estimated by non- governmental bodies, occurred outside Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq, the so-called “areas of active hostilities ”.
The release by the Director General of Intelligence (DNI), which oversees the US intelligence community, did not, however, give a location-specific breakdown of these numbers.
But Pakistan is likely one of them, especially its northwestern parts where the US has used drones to kill terrorists—such as Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour in May.
The US has also used drones extensively against al-Shabaab terrorists in Somalia, killing 150 of them in strikes last March, according to an announcement made by the Pentagon then.
The DNI said between 2,372 and 2,581 combatants, intended targets, were killed in a total of 473 drone strikes outside “areas of active hostilities” from January 2009 to December 2015.
Figures cited by non-governmental bodies are much higher— at least 325 by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism ,219 by New America Foundation and 212 by Long War Journal.
Acknowledging these differences between its figures and those of non-governmental bodies, the D NI said the first official count is based on“post-strike methodologies that have been refined and honed over the years and that use information that is generally unavailable to non-governmental organisations”.
And, it added, non-governmental bodies sometimes count combatants as non-combatants because they do not have the kind of follow-up information available to officials.
Second, US government post-strike reviews based on multi-source intelligence from before, during and after the strike are unique and not available to non-governmental bodies.
Third, non-government counts may have been compromised “by deliberate spread of misinformation by some actors ”.
An executive order issued by President O ba ma along with DNI release makes it incumbent upon the president, those who follow him, to publish these figures every year.
And it also enjoins upon the government to “offer condolences, including ex gratia payments” to civilian skilled in such strikes, and coordinate casualty figures with non-government bodies. This is “a very deliberate attempt to ensure that the architecture... is durable, sustainable and lasting well beyond next seven months,” a senior official said, according to Washington Post.
